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Differences in intelligence would still exist even if they were never measured. All your ramblings about the efficacy of IQ testing notwithstanding, some people will still be more intelligent than other people and some groups will still be more intelligent than other groups.
I'm not really talking about IQ here even though I quoted IQ figures. I'm talking about intelligence. People who are not very intelligent don't seem to do very well in life while people who are intelligent seem to do ok. I don't care what number you put on it and I don't care how you measure it. Most of us have never had our intelligence measured but we all know there are people more intelligent than we are and there are people who are not as intelligent as we are.
Forget the tests. They are not the point!
- Reel
The tests are your point because they are the only evidence you have to suggest that people from certain countries are 'stupid' which is necessary for your argument regarding the continued poverty of those places, nevermind the fact that there are essentially no serious economists or development experts who would agree with such a statement. There is a lot of debate in the development literature regarding what is needed to break out of the poverty trap and what is the root cause of poverty, but none of that debate is over relative intelligence. Most everyone who studies these issues agrees that it is a combination of policy factors, governing institutions, capital, market integration, agricultural factors (such as climate and soil quality), resource availability, cultural homogeneity vs heterogeneity, regime type, technology diffusion and geographic location. The debates are over the relative importance of these factors and which policies and institutions are most conducive to economic development. These are the real issues.
Regardless, I'd just love to see your data regarding the IQ measures. I'd like to see the source and, more importantly, I'd like to see the methodologies employed.
Yeah, a couple of thoughts, in fact. First, your title is misleading for you address not just poverty, but also hunger, and also war. That's three, count'em.
The US already hands out enough money around the world, a lot to countries who could give a tinker's damn about OUR welfare.
I'm not "brushing it aside," but I WILL tell you this: It's not my personal problem.
Hunger is one aspect of poverty as measured by the major international organizations (and governmental organizations) which engage in development work. Poverty is understood as the inability to achieve a standard of living conducive to meeting basic needs. Real poverty is a lack of access to enough food/nutrition to meet basic needs, lack of access to clean water, lack of access to basic healthcare services and lack of housing. Average income is usually used to measure this because it's a standardized means of comparing across countries and regions.
Hunger is one aspect of poverty as measured by the major international organizations (and governmental organizations) which engage in development work. Poverty is understood as the inability to achieve a standard of living conducive to meeting basic needs. Real poverty is a lack of access to enough food/nutrition to meet basic needs, lack of access to clean water, lack of access to basic healthcare services and lack of housing. Average income is usually used to measure this because it's a standardized means of comparing across countries and regions.
The tests are your point because they are the only evidence you have to suggest that people from certain countries are 'stupid' which is necessary for your argument regarding the continued poverty of those places, nevermind the fact that there are essentially no serious economists or development experts who would agree with such a statement. There is a lot of debate in the development literature regarding what is needed to break out of the poverty trap and what is the root cause of poverty, but none of that debate is over relative intelligence. Most everyone who studies these issues agrees that it is a combination of policy factors, governing institutions, capital, market integration, agricultural factors (such as climate and soil quality), resource availability, cultural homogeneity vs heterogeneity, regime type, technology diffusion and geographic location. The debates are over the relative importance of these factors and which policies and institutions are most conducive to economic development. These are the real issues.
Regardless, I'd just love to see your data regarding the IQ measures. I'd like to see the source and, more importantly, I'd like to see the methodologies employed.
Ok, let's forget about intelligence. Let's look at achievement. Also, let's eliminate poverty, malnutrition and quality of education from the equation. How do you explain the achievement gap between middle class Asians and middle class hispanics in the United States of America? How do you explain the achievement gap between middle class blacks and middle class whites in this country?
The tests are your point because they are the only evidence you have to suggest that people from certain countries are 'stupid' which is necessary for your argument regarding the continued poverty of those places, nevermind the fact that there are essentially no serious economists or development experts who would agree with such a statement. There is a lot of debate in the development literature regarding what is needed to break out of the poverty trap and what is the root cause of poverty, but none of that debate is over relative intelligence. Most everyone who studies these issues agrees that it is a combination of policy factors, governing institutions, capital, market integration, agricultural factors (such as climate and soil quality), resource availability, cultural homogeneity vs heterogeneity, regime type, technology diffusion and geographic location. The debates are over the relative importance of these factors and which policies and institutions are most conducive to economic development. These are the real issues.
Regardless, I'd just love to see your data regarding the IQ measures. I'd like to see the source and, more importantly, I'd like to see the methodologies employed.
Thanks for the debate. I enjoyed it. You are a good debater, you have a lot of facts and you present them well.
The only thing I would suggest is to try to stay away from the labeling, name calling and personal attacks. For the most part you have done that. I only noticed it slip in a couple of times. For example, I never used the word 'supid'. That is an attempt by you to make it seems as though I was denigrating these folks. That's a poor debate tactic and you should try to stay away from it.
Money is only a measure of poverty; absolute poverty, which is what is being captured by the statistics I cited, is a situation in which a persons basic needs aren't being met. Living on less than a dollar or two a day means acquiring every meal is a great struggle, it means that you rarely have a roof over your head, it means that you certainly don't have any access to healthcare of any sort; it means a lack of opportunity to receive an education and a lack of ability to do anything to remove ones' self from poverty. It means children who are without parents (either because they died or because the parents simply can't afford to take care of the child) and who are chronically malnourished and dying of easily prevented diseases. An enormous number of people (billions, not millions) are suffering terribly as a result of circumstances that are far beyond their control. As long as the status quo remains and there isn't a more concerted effort to address the systemic problems which result in this widespread poverty then people will continue to suffer.
I really believe it a moral failure of the developed world that more isn't being done to address this.
What is interfering in the creation, trade and enjoyment of surplus usable goods and services?
Money.
Why can't "poor" countries utilize their "unemployed" (surplus) labor?
Money.
Why can't "rich" countries utilize their "underemployed" labor and production (closed factories)?
Money.
So until you realize that "money madness" is behind worldwide poverty, giving "money" taken from someone else, is no solution.
And, arguing about someone living on "less than a dollar" without first providing the local marketplace valuation in terms of "dollars" (i.e., dollar bills), is futile.
How much does it cost, in labor, to buy the same unit of labor from someone else?
Frankly, what we need is equitable trade, and as long as the usurers run the world, that will never happen.
For the most part the people you describe do not have the mental capacity or ability to produce even what they need to survive. Looking at it from a micro level, it's easy to feel sorry for these folks as you seem to. Looking at it from a macro level, everyone is going to die. In fact, the human race will not be around for ever.
Looking at the big picture, Darwin/Mother Nature says that these folks should perish. Mother Nature says that the fittest should survive and procreate ensuring the continue evolution and improvement of the human race.
The social pathologies that you describe are those we see disproportionately in the segments of society with the lowest levels of intelligence. They include violence, crime, poverty, illegitimacy, high rate of AIDS and other STDs, low educational achievement and low productivity to name a few.
The problem is that you cannot teach these people to fish. You will forever have to keep giving them fish. We could go in and provide an infrastructure for running water, factories to build mosquito nets and farming equipment, schools, medicine, hospitals, etc but these things would soon disappear if we left.
You seem to think the resources of the developed world are unlimited but they are not. If we ensured the survival of these folks they would soon out number our ability to help them. Soon there would not be enough productive members of society to carry all of the folks who cannot even produce what they need to survive.
These people will perish anyway in the end. You want us to deplete our resources and significantly lower our standard of living to attempt to help folks who are going to perish in the end anyway. This is what I call pi$$ing into the wind.
It's not nice to fool with Mother Nature and, in fact, you cannot. Mother Nature will always have her way.
- Reel
Best post I have seen in awhile on here. Reality check. Cuts the crap, gets to the crux. No, not nice to fool Mother Nature or mess with her. When a people en masse are not even teachable, there are indeed not enough resources over the generations to make a difference. Money, resources, time and energy thrown down the big black hole. In the meantime, our responsibility is here at home, we have plenty of problems to attend to and throw money at, without going global to pay back the ever burgeoning "guilt debt" we allegedly owe the rest of the world.
And, arguing about someone living on "less than a dollar" without first providing the local marketplace valuation in terms of "dollars" (i.e., dollar bills), is futile.
How much does it cost, in labor, to buy the same unit of labor from someone else?
Measures of absolute poverty (those living on less than a Dollar-a-Day or Two-Dollars-a-Day) measure that poverty in GDP per Capita, PPP so all of that is already taken into account.
That will never happen because the capitalists of the world (global corporates) make their most profit due to this imbalance.
Create your goods in low cost countries for pennies and sell in high cost countries to consumers who have money. That makes the most profit.
The big profit margin enjoyed by the corporates along with their lobbying money to prevent any change to BAU is what we have to overcome.
The only alternative is communism in its truest definition.
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